


Breathtaking

by Katsala



Series: Forces of Nature [3]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: American Companion, Anorexia (mentioned), Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Fear, Fifteenth Doctor - Freeform, Gen, Hallucinations, Infidelity, Loss of loved ones, Party, Poker, Running, Skyscrapers, Stars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:46:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27530980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katsala/pseuds/Katsala
Summary: There’s a party in the tallest tower in the galaxy, and fear is in the air. Literally. Don’t believe everything you see.
Relationships: Original Female Character(s)/Original Female Character(a), The Doctor/River Song
Series: Forces of Nature [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1967434





	Breathtaking

Candice ran out of the TARDIS closet, carrying one black kitten heel in each hand, the strapless calf-length a-line skirt Little Black Dress she’d found fluttering behind her. She skidded into the console room, which she had privately nicknamed Disco City, and asked the Doctor for the fifth time, “How tall is the building again?”

“Five miles, with 1885 floors,” she repeated, amused.

Candice looked her over. She was wearing the same outfit she’d been in since they met. “Aren’t you going to get dressed up?”

“I am dressed up!” she protested, gesturing to her messy ponytail and huge yellow plastic hoop earrings. 

Candice giggled. “And you look fabulous.” She balanced on one foot and started to put on her shoe. “Tell me more about the planet.”

The Doctor flicked some of the controls with vigor, saying, “It’s breathtaking. Really, that’s the name, Breathtaking. The party we’re going to is for the anniversary of its colonization; the native species had all died out by the time humans found it. Maybe I’ll go find out why someday.” She pulled a bright blue lever, then seemed to change her mind and pushed it back up. “The building is called Atlas Tower. It’s so tall it goes above the breathable atmosphere, so it’s got its own artificial one. You humans never let anything stop you from whacking out a great big skyscraper, do you? Plus it’s made out completely out of materials found on-planet-“ she continued. 

Candice stood on the other foot to get her other shoe on, resting her hand on the console. The Doctor trailed off, staring at the ring on her thumb, her eyes going soft. 

“Oh, sorry, do you mind if I wear this? I found it in the jewelry box and you said I could take whatever, but I can put it back if you want,” Candice said. She’d never seen that look on the Doctor’s face before. It was almost… lovesick. She looked again at the ring; it was gold with a double band and a green gemstone on top. It looked perfectly ordinary to her.

“I thought I lost that… it’s perfectly alright, Candice. I would be honored to have you wear it,” the Doctor said, pulling Candice’s hand to her mouth and kissing the ring. She seemed to shake herself out of her funk and re-pulled the bright blue lever. With a jerk, the TARDIS landed.

Candice strode over to the doors and threw them open excitedly, only to see that they were parked in a closed closet. She sighed and opened those doors, too, finally revealing the penthouse party. People in black tie, robot waiters carrying refreshments, and a gorgeous-looking poker table. The floor was made of marble and the ceiling of glass. There was nothing but endless black sky above them. 

“Eat your heart out, Scott Cahill,” she muttered under her breath. 

She and the Doctor clambered out of the closet. Candice snagged a flute of champagne and the Doctor grabbed an entire tray of escargot, eating them rapidly with a little fork. Candice headed towards the poker while the Doctor floated off to a display of alien artifacts.

Candice got dealt in. A redheaded woman in an olive green dress standing next to her made a show out of pretending to look at her cards; she folded the next turn with a laugh. 

The man across the table from Candice laid out his hand. “Full House,” he said confidently. 

“Four of a Kind,” Candice countered, scooping in all the chips.

The redheaded woman laughed louder. “I’m Elaine,” she said. The lights glinted off her straight white teeth; there was a small gap between the top two incisors. 

Candice finished her flute of champagne and held out her hand to shake. “Candice.”

The Doctor snarfed down escargot as she viewed the artifact display. There was a small bone carved with indigenous hieroglyphics that translated to a shopping list, a plain wooden box covered in a thin layer of wax, and a ceremonial hunting knife with a large yellowish jewel set in the handle. She closed her eyes and breathed it in- all that time, all those people, their rich history gone by. In its own way it was beautiful. 

Out of the corner of her eye she saw a jerk of movement. Looking over, she saw a man in a smart pinstriped suit having some kind of seizure. He fell to the floor as she watched, writhing. She set down her snail tray and started to leg it over. Before she could get close, though,two security goons blocked her path.

“Let me through, I’m a doctor,” she said, trying to skirt around them. 

They moved to block her again. “He’s fine. Too much champagne, we’re afraid.” More security guards swarmed the man and began carting him off to the elevators. “Please,” the guard said reassuringly, “enjoy the party.”

The Doctor watched them get into the elevator with the others. The man was still seizing as the doors slid closed. She blew a stray piece of hair out of her eyes, annoyed, and marched over to the elevators to scan the interface with the sonic; they’d gone to floor 1776.

She turned to go get Candice, but her friend was no longer at the poker table. The Doctor sighed. The wandering off was becoming a theme. Oh well.

When the doors dinged open again, she walked in without hesitation and pressed the button for 1776.

Candice was watching another round progress and chatting with her new friend when a woman, who looked almost identical to Elaine but without the gapped teeth, rushed over to them. 

“Dad’s on his way up,” she told Elaine. 

Elaine groaned. “Shit. Thanks for the warning, Sala.” She looked back at Candice, then up at the glass ceiling. “Wanna stargaze?”

Candice nodded, grinning. “It’s my first time in the galaxy. You’ll have to show me everything.”

Sala bounded away past the artifact display while Elaine and Candice took a staircase up to the roof. Candice expected it to be cold and whipped outside, but it was mild and still. She remembered what the Doctor said about the artificial atmosphere.

Candice looked up at the stars, feeling a thrill at their unfamiliarity. Elaine, meanwhile, was looking down. A man with red hair made his way out, clutching onto a young blonde woman around the same age as Candice and Elaine. Candice was fairly certain she was not his wife.

“That’s my dad. Modestus MacArthur- he’s one of the blokes throwing the party. And that’s his friend, Jenny.” She said the word friend very carefully, like she was afraid it would bite her.

“Is your mom here?”

“Nah. She doesn’t really do parties anymore.” Elaine shrugged. She tilted her head back to see the stars and smiled. “Do you see that line of three bright ones just below the moon?”

Candice nodded. 

“That’s the giant’s spear. There’s five dimmer ones that make up his body- head, hands, feet. He’s eternally running into battle. And if you follow down from his left foot,” she said, pointing, and Candice’s eyes followed obediently, “there’s a line of six stars in a wave pattern. That’s the sea serpent Dimerinda, mourning for her lost children. And over there is the princess. You can see those ones make up her hair, and the brightest in her constellation is her hand, reaching out for her unfaithful lover, trying to reach him but never making it. Condemned to heartbreak and longing forever.” 

Her hand began to shake ever so slightly. Candice reached up and tangled their fingers so that they were both reaching towards the stars. Elaine laughed, softer than she had before. 

“I’m sorry,” Candice told her quietly. 

“What for?” Elaine asked, voice bright. She glanced back downstairs. “They’re leaving. C’mon, I’ll show you the live band on the 1881st. It’s to die for.”

Floor 1776 was in chaos.

Sheets were strung up haphazardly to give privacy; the Doctor counted eighteen people being attended to. Some, like the man she’d seen in the penthouse, were convulsing. Some were simply screaming. There was a boy who couldn’t be older than seventeen being restrained by two security guards so that he couldn’t tear out his own hair.

A distinguished dark-skinned woman in her forties, who had the air of being in charge, marched over to the Doctor, jaw set. “Ma’am, this floor is off limits to all guests-“ she stopped when the Doctor flashed the psychic paper. “One of the Minister’s private physicians?” She sighed. “Fine. But I won’t have you panicking the other guests. There’s over 150,000 people in Atlas Tower tonight.” She shook the Doctor’s hand. “Morgan Karma, head of security.”

“And I’m just the Doctor,” she said, already heading over to the first patient. She made the rounds to each of them, all in varying stages of sanity; those in the middle of the room seemed less affected for some reason. One woman reached out and grabbed her arm, breathing shallowly.

“Keep them away from me,” she begged. “The ghosts- please-“

“I will do everything I can,” the Doctor told her honestly. She gently peeled the fingers off her arm and finished her examinations. 

“Do you have any idea what’s causing this?” Morgan Karma, head of security, asked.

“It doesn’t present as a virus or bacterium. More like a poison.” The Doctor scanned the room, eyes narrowing. “And it’s airborne.”

“How do you know?”

She pointed, saying, “The people near the vents are the worst off. Get everyone in the middle of the room and plug the ducts.”

Karma relayed her orders to the other guards. “There’s emergency canned air tanks in case of trouble with the atmospheric field. Enough for all the guests, but only for a few hours.” She paused.

The Doctor finished for her. “And if there’s an airborne weapon in the building, opening up and letting guests leave would expose the rest of the city. The rest of the planet.”

Karma nodded.

“We have to find whatever started this. I have a friend who can help me search. You’ll need all your staff to attend to the guests.” 

As she turned to go she felt a sudden sharp pain in her temple. She squeezed her eyes closed, letting out a little involuntary gasp, and when she opened her eyes, there she was. 

River Song looked the same as ever: big hair, wide smirk, eyes that gleamed like suns when she looked at the Doctor. Even knowing she wasn’t real, the illusion was a convincing one. The Doctor’s fingers twitched, wanting to reach out to her wife, to touch her for the first time in centuries, wanting her to be real-

Karma grabbed the Doctor by the shoulder. She flinched, and suddenly River wasn’t quite right anymore. She was like a convincing hologram or a robotic double, close but unable to properly capture just how alive the woman had been. Nothing ever could. 

“Doctor,” Karma said sharply, “have you been affected?”

The Doctor shook her head. “I can handle it.” And she probably could. Her respiratory bypass system would handle the poison better than a human. “And we don’t have time to argue.” She flashes Karma a smile she didn’t feel and headed to the elevators. She needed to find Candice.

Candice and Elaine snuck down from the roof; Modestus and Jenny were on the other side of the room, waiting for an elevator. The girls had just reached the stairway when an elevator dinged open, revealing the Doctor. Candice waved at her, but her smile faded when she saw the pinched look on her friend’s face.

A scream rang out through the penthouse. Sala MacArthur, her hair and eyes wild, slammed into Jenny, knocking her to the floor. 

Elaine ran over to them with a shout and Candice followed. The Doctor was there too, trying to contain Sala, who seemed suddenly far too strong for her petite frame. The Doctor had her arms and Candice had her legs, Elaine was pulling Jenny to safety, Modestus and his guests stood frozen. With a sharp kick, Sala sent Candice flying into the artifact display. 

She knocked the table down with a crash. The bone and knife clattered to the floor, and the plain wooden box burst open on impact. A spray of fine white powder exploded from inside, filling the air. Candice watched it dance in the light before dissipating. 

“Found it,” the Doctor muttered, still holding down a struggling Sala. 

Candice hauled herself up, grabbed the velvet ropes that had surrounded the display, and used them to tie Sala up.

The Doctor, her hands now free, scrambled over to a small door in the wall labeled ‘Emergency.’ She pulled out a metal canister and mask and hurried back to get Candice hooked up to it. Canned air filler her lungs. The Doctor’s fingers were delicate on her face as she checked to make sure the mask was properly on, and her eyes kept flickering to look at something over Candice’s shoulder. When she turned, there was nothing there. 

Once Candice was hooked up, she went over and grabbed another air tank for Elaine and started to help her put it on. The Doctor, meanwhile, addressed the room at large. “Do not panic. A hallucinogenic substance has just been released into the air. Everyone get hooked up to a canister. You and you, in the yellow,” she said, pointing to two seemingly random guests, “once you get hooked up I want you to go down to the other floors and get the rest of the guests on air too. Anyone that starts seeing things that aren’t real, head to floor 1776 and ask for Morgan Karma.” There was silence. The Doctor flapped her hands like she was trying to drive away pigeons. “Go!”

People finally started moving. 

“What do we do?” Candice asked the Doctor between breaths.

“I don’t know. Give me a minute.” She closed her eyes and started muttering to herself, shoulder hunching, fingers twitching as if she were typing. 

“Doesn’t she need a canister?” Elaine asked anxiously.

“No,” the Doctor said without looking up. “My respiratory system will filter out the toxins. It doesn’t have as potent an effect.”Her eyes opened. “Got it. The building has an atmospheric field that’s containing the powder. If we turn it off, all the air in the tower will be sucked into space. Turn it off and back on again, you’d be surprised how common that’s the solution.”

Modestus looked up from fitting Sala and Jenny with masks. “The atmospheric controls are on floors 100 and 1700. You have to operate both at once to shut the field down, it’s a failsafe.”

The Doctor nodded. “Alright. Candice, you go to 1700, I’ll go 100. Meet back here when it’s all done.”

“I’m coming too,” Elaine said firmly.

“Groovy. Remind me to learn your name later, you seem lovely.” The Doctor bolted to the elevators, and Candice and Elaine followed.

Floor 1700 was no longer a party. Several guests huddled together in groups, clinging to their canned air. Candice made her way to the atmospheric control room, Elaine on her heels.

Candice jimmied the handle; the door was rather sensibly locked. She pulled her credit card from her bra and slid it up the door crack. It clicked open. 

A soon as Candice pushed the door in, a security guard flew out at them. His eyes were bloodshot, and he breathed the contaminated air raggedly. Elaine pushed Candice out of the way just before his nightstick would have smashed her face in. Candice hit the floor and twisted, knocking the man’s feet out from under him. He went down, frothing at the mouth, and began to convulse. He stilled a few moments later and didn’t move again.

Candice couldn’t take her eyes off him. He was just inches away from her face. She’d only seen a dead body once before and this…

“Oh, God,” Elaine said. Candice’s eyes snapped off the man and went to her friend. Her air tank had taken the blow meant for Candice. The mask had snapped off and there was a deep dent in the canister itself.

Candice dragged herself up and ran over to a dispenser identical to the one in the penthouse. It was empty.

Elaine was holding her breath, lips pressed together tightly. Her hands started to shake again. Candice remembered the way her eyes shone under the starlight. 

Candice took her mask off and gave her canister to Elaine. She took a deep, experimental breath without it. Nothing felt different. “Go. Do the controls. I’ll go find another one. And we don’t have time to argue.”

She turned on her heels and marched towards the stairs, resisting the urge to look behind her. And as the door closed behind her, she heard it.

“Hey, Candy.”

The girl stood above her. Her sweater and jeans hung baggily off her emaciated frame. Her smile was half-toothless. She had the same hazel eyes Candice saw in the mirror every day, but duller and more lifeless and angrier. 

“Amanda,” she gasped. “No. No, you’re not here. I know you’re not here.”

Amanda’s grin widened. “You wish you were that lucky.” She stepped down three stairs, her bare feet slapping loudly against the floor. Candice could hear it ringing in the echoey stairwell and she knew it wasn’t real but it sounded so much like it was. “But I was always going to find you. I was always going to get even.”

“It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t. I was twelve years old, Mandy.”

“And I was sixteen. And I’ll always be sixteen. And you’ll always know you should have done more. And I’ll always be here to remind you, now.” Amanda held up three fingers. “One.” Two fingers. “Two.” One finger. “Three.”

Candice bolted. She ran down the staircase, her ankle twisting as she hit the last step wrong. Her breathing sped up. She glanced behind her and Amanda was  _right there_ ,  her fragile little shoulders shaking with laughter. 

She didn’t look behind her again. She just ran.

Things crept at the corner of her eyes. She could see darkness and music and ghosts chasing her. Her breath rattled around in her head, the only thing she could hear now. She felt slimy, bony things snatching at her hands, her borrowed dress, and she imagined the Doctor’s voice saying, “Do not panic. Do not panic. Do not panic.” She breathed so hard she felt she might burst.

  
Then the lights flickered and she couldn’t breathe at all.

“-found her in the stairs on floor 1650,” a faraway voice said. “She was still screaming- something about a girl named Mandy. It’s pure luck she didn’t fall and break her neck.”

Candice felt a hand brush through her hair. “If we’d been any later…” the Doctor mused.

Candice’s eyes popped open. She was laying on her back on the floor. The Doctor knelt next to her; her ponytail had fallen all the way out. A security guard was next to her. Candice guessed this was Morgan Karma.

“Is everyone okay?” She asked, her voice a croak.

“Six deaths. It’s a miracle there weren’t more.”

The Doctor met Candice’s eyes. “Are you okay?”

She moved her ankle experimentally and immediately regretted it. “I am never running down stairs in heels again.”

The Doctor brushed her fingers gently over the swelling skin, looking thoughtful. There was a faint glow, and suddenly little threads of gold enveloped her hand and Candice’s ankle. The pain receded.

“And with that, I’m going to bed,” Karma announced. “Thanks for your help, Doctor. I hope I never see you again.”

Candice and the Doctor made their way to the elevator and took one last trip to the top of the Tower. 

Candice kept her eyes on the flashing floor numbers as she said, “Are you going to ask who Mandy is?”

“Are you going to tell me?”

Candice sighed. “She was my sister. She… she died when I was a kid. She starved herself to death.”

“I’m sorry.” 

There was something in the Doctor’s voice that made her feel like this was a test. She turned to face her, a little upset.

“My mother couldn’t take it. She ran off. I had to be there for my dad. No one was ever there for me. No one until Scott.”

The Doctor stared at her with those enormous green eyes, giving nothing away. “I have a time machine. You’ve never asked.”

Candice snorted. “Not the way _you_ think.” She tossed her hair, looking back at the floor numbers. “Amanda loved mermaids,” she admitted quietly.

The Doctor silently reached over and hooked their pinkies. Candice felt the tension between them drain away.

They were just about to climb back into the storage closet when Elaine ran up to them. 

“Candice.” She paused for a moment, looking her over for injuries. “I’m… I’m glad you’re alright. I have to find my family. I just. Uh.” She reached up, cupping her hand around the back of Candice’s skull, and pressed a light kiss to her lips. She pulled back, licking her chapped lips. “I gotta go. But I’ll come find you.” She ran off again, hands steady.

“We could stick around for a bit,” the Doctor offered as they watched her leave. “You don’t meet a girl like her every day.”

Candice thought about it. “She deserves better than me.” She flung open the closet door and walked into the TARDIS. “I think I’m ready for Monday.”

**Author's Note:**

> The ring is Twelve’s wedding ring he wore in honor of River Song. He lost it after regenerating into Thirteen, but the TARDIS kept it safe.
> 
> I have never played poker in my life but I watched that one Try Guys video a couple times as research.


End file.
